Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1874 — Wet Boots. [ARTICLE]

Wet Boots.

A friend writes from Europe: What an amount of discomfort wet boots entail, to be sure f and how well we all recall the fretful efforts we have now and then made to draw on a pair of hardbaked ones which were put by the tire over night to dry. Damp and adhesive within, they are without stiff and unyielding as horn. Once on, they are a sort of modern stocks, destructive of all comfort and entirely demoralizing to the temper. The following simple device will rob> the cold, wet barnyard of a slushy winter or spring evening of half its promise of discomfort for the next morning: When the boots are taken off fill them quite full with dry oats. This grain has a great fondness for damp and will rapidly absorb the last vestige of it from the wet leather. As it takes up the moisture it swells and fills the boot with a tightlyfitting last, keeping its form good and drjing the leather without hardening it. In the morning shake out the oats and hang them in a bag near the fire to dry, ready for the next night, draw on the boots and go happily about the day’s work. —American Agriculturist.